


"I'd /like/ to tell you I have a Force Ghost in my head, but I can't."

by ImperialParagons



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen, pov switching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-03 11:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14568201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperialParagons/pseuds/ImperialParagons
Summary: A different take on Chapter 11: The Disavowed. Having Valkorion in her head is slowly driving The Commander crazy, and meeting up with Aric again after six years apart doesn't go quite as planned.POV switching between Theron and an OC Light Side Miralan Republic Trooper





	1. “Right, important details first. What’s left of Havoc Squad is on Zakuul.”

“Commander,” there was a terse moment in which Theron wasn’t entirely sure that The Commander was listening to him. It was hard to miss the smooth spot worn in the stone from where Lo’nash had spent the past few weeks pacing circles around the War Room table, and she didn’t look up at him or acknowledge that he’d spoken at all. “Command—“

“I heard you,” she stopped pacing long enough to fix him with a steely grey-eyed stare that would have cowed most people. Even having known the Commander as long as he had it was almost a reflex for Theron to take a step back from her when she was in a mood like this. She folded her arms across her chest and continued to stare at him, waiting for him to continue, having seemingly decided that she was at least willing to hear him out.

“I passed on the information about—“

Lo’nash’s eyes narrowed even farther and Theron actually took a step back and held up his hands in appeasement. “Right, important details first. What’s left of Havoc Squad is on Zakuul.”

Her expression was inscrutable, and she stared right through him off into the distance before snapping back to reality with a low growl. “Is it—“

“My contact didn’t name names,” Theron interjected quickly, having anticipated that question. Given that there were only two possibilities he had figured it was better he didn’t know ahead of time which of the two remaining members of Havoc they might be meeting. There had been plenty of rumors about Malcom having poached the XO of Havoc after the team has disbanded, but given that Aric and Elara had almost immediately devolved into a power struggle once war had broken out, keeping track of which of the two of the them it had been had fallen off his radar.

It was also dangerously close to lying to the Commander. But having the declared-dead commander of Havoc charge headlong into the Republic Senate and start demanding that they turn over a senior officer to a rogue faction, there was no way that would have ended well. “All I know is that Havoc Squad has officially been declared rogue and they’ve been sighted on Zakuul,” Theron smirked before adding, “Your name however, Commander, is being thrown around in the press. Invoked in horror that you would /never/ had condoned such a thing.”

The Commander didn’t laugh, although the corners of her mouth twitched into something other than a scowl. Some of the tension seemed to drop from her shoulders and her tone switched from surly to curious, “Do we know anything about why they’re on Zakuul, what caused them to go rogue?”

“I’m sorry Commander, my contact took a huge risk contacting us at all. It was a very brief message.”

“Tell Agent Balker thanks next time you get the chance.”

Theron raised an eyebrow, “Agent who?” That at least earned him a smile from the Commander.

There was still a restlessly angry energy about Lo’nash that threatened to spill over into her terrifying another new Alliance recruit, but for the moment it seemed tempered at the prospect of a reunion with her old team. Running interference for her temper had almost become a full time job. It was hard to keep everybody from worrying about her when she never seemed to sleep, and spent every waking moment staring at datapads and galaxy maps. Between her and Senya the intensity of any conversation in the War Room felt nearly apocalyptic, the weight of the galaxy on both women’s shoulders. “I’ve already prepped a shuttle Commander, I thought you might want to leave right away before this becomes a committee discussion.”

It was another hedge on his part. Not knowing who it was on the other end, there were too many variables for an entire team to go, the less people involved the less likely it was for things go sideways. Even having hedged like that, there was still a knot in Theron’s stomach about what might happen. It had been six years for the Commander; and more than that, she’d changed. In ways that he wouldn’t have expected her to. There was a part of him that held to the faint notion that Valkorion was beyond at least some of the change; that /of course/ having somebody like that in your head changed you.

It was hard to shake the memories of the old Major sometime. She would always be the woman who had threatened to personally dismantle the entire Revanite army on what was probably a suicidal rescue mission rather than admit for even a second that a Sith Lord might have been right. Her absolute surety in a world divided into black and white, right and wrong, had been bracing at first. No profile, no matter how detailed Agent Balker had been about it, could have prepared him for the reality of somebody who was always so damn certain about everything she did.

Even during the fiasco with Agent Jaxo, 4Xs internal recorder had shown (after the fact) that there hadn’t been a split second of hesitation when the time came to make the call. Even above the objections of Elara AND Jorgan. She’d just acted. But, as the Commander, she seemed perpetually on edge. The same effortless confidence she’d had back then, now had a reckless tinge to it. Once he might have asked her about it, rekindled what could have been a fondness for her, but…

“I’ll tell Lana we’re headed on a recruitment mission. Meet me at the shuttle in ten minutes.”

“Are you sure you can say goodbye in ten minutes Commander?” He regretted teasing her about Lana almost immediately, but kept the cocky grin on his face in order to mask his worry that one day he was going to push her just a little bit too far about it. For a second he wondered if his luck had run out as Lo’nash took an aggressive step towards him, eyes flashing dangerously, fist clenched like she wanted nothing more than to take a swing at him and wipe the smug grin off his face. He raised his eyebrows suggestively and winked, suppressing a laugh at her pained expression, even though he knew The Commander hated that.

She stormed past him instead.

Not for the first time Theron was glad for the “no weapons in The War Room” policy. It had originally been implemented to keep Senya and Koth from getting into shouting matches that only ended when one of the two pulled a weapon on the other. They’d been getting along better lately. Although Theron had to admit that was probably because they were almost never in the same room for very long with Koth out on The Gravestone so often. But everybody else, if it wasn’t one thing it was another.

Theron didn’t wait more than a minute before he followed the Commander towards the hanger bay. She’d managed to startle one of the Imperial soldiers into a state of near panic about the smallest speck of dust he’d let settle on his otherwise spotless armor; and Theron stopped just long enough to reassure the man that The Commander was not really going to do whatever horrible thing she had threatened this time for a minor infraction. She really needed to stop doing that.

Nine minutes and forty-five seconds later, just as she’d said, The Commander stepped into the shuttle, its engines already primed and purring ready for takeoff. The flight deck doors were still in the process of opening, but take off clearance had already been granted; “I’m impressed Commander.”

“Don’t you—“

Theron purposefully jostled the shuttle during lift off just enough to make The Commander grab hold of the safety straps, and gunned the engine almost immediately. There was something he’d always loved about flying shuttles, bigger ships, even ones the size of the Gravestone lacked the maneuverability of small shuttlecraft. They were in hyperspace sooner then he would have liked, that nearly straight vertical accent into the atmosphere, his own way of shedding some of the stress of the day. He didn’t, strictly speaking, need to stay at the controls given his implants but Theron made himself look busy rather than try and make conversation with The Commander.

She broke the silence first, “Thanks for telling that Imperial that I wasn’t actually going to feed him to Exobarrs.”


	2. "Republic military intelligence doesn’t exactly send me weekly briefings anymore."

Hiding the shuttle craft didn’t take more than a few minutes of work. Routine military tasks always seemed to set the Commander at ease, and during the companionable silence while they were positing the stealth generators Theron noticed for the first time that she’d swapped out the insignia on her armor. Lo’nash had agreed to switch to using the Alliance Seal while serving as Commander, and the change was the type of small detail he should have picked up on the second she’d set foot on the shuttle. The paint was a little faded, much less orange then it looked in all the holovids certainly, but she was unmistakably wearing Havoc Squad colors.

Why hadn’t he noticed? It hit Theron harder than he expected when he realized why. He had known her so much longer as a Major, as the leader of Havoc Squad always ready to charge into the worst battles, always ready to play the Calvary when he needed a rescue that it was her role as Alliance Commander that seemed foreign to him. Not that he begrudged her the promotion; but, putting her behind a desk and asking her to make tactical decisions from half way across the galaxy – the mismatch showed. She was more at home in the swamp then she had ever seemed on Odessan.

Distracted for a moment, Theron nearly tripped over some half buried hunk of metal, but before he was much more than off-balance The Commander had grabbed his shoulder and kept him upright. He hadn’t even realized how close she’d been. He had opened his mouth to crack a joke about it when he realized why she’d been so close in the first place. While most of the Zakuulan wild life was no threat, the giant spiders were.

“There’s egg sacs on the right flank. I’ll draw it left while you take them out.”

She was gone a split second later. Even wearing heavy armor in a swamp where every footstep seemed to make a slurping sound she moved like a ghost. Theron snapped into combat mode, following her as he ran lightly across the driest parts of ground his implants could detect. He was only just in position when she started firing at the larger creature; the sound of her heavy assault cannon distracting it from the much softer pinging sound of his blasters against egg shell. It was quick work to destroy the eggs, and he scanned for any other clusters that might have been hidden in the muck, before he turned back to help finish off the larger spider.

Not that he needed to have bothered. The creature had gone down in a matter of seconds, and The Commander had already taken several steps towards him. Theron simply holstered his pistols and waited until she was close enough to avoid yelling – “Thanks for leaving the hard task to me Commander. It’ll take a week to get the goo out of my jacket.”

She took a playful swing at him over that, actual mirth in her grey eyes. “I’d like to have seen you do better.”

“Hey, next giant spider, you take out the eggs, I’ll take down the beast.”

For a moment he had The Major back. Her stride was confident again, and Theron allowed himself to believe that there was still hope for that person to come back – that once they defeated Valkorian, she’d go back to that same person he had known on Rishi and Yavin and—

“We’re here.” He interrupted his own train of thought as they stepped onto something approaching a grassy knoll in the swamp. Some sort of settlers had built a deep water pump and there was a scattering of supplies at their feet, a few hours old at best. “My contact—“

From the inside of a backpack a device crackled to life, “Neither of you move.”

Jorgan.

The Commander didn’t even need a whole word to have figured that out, her eyes swept up and before Jorgan’s finished with ‘you’ she had spotted his sniper’s nest. Theron was not too far behind, and he tensed and repressed the urge to slowly start moving a hand towards his weapon. Six years was a long time. Havoc had gone rogue. The new Havoc Squad weren’t the same people The Commander had served with. Theron glanced at Lo’nash, looking for a cue from her on how they should proceed, but her face was unreadable, a slightly spaced out look on her features. /Valkorion must be talking to her/.

Shit.

Theron could feel a draft swirling about, and the more he focused on it, the more he realized that he could almost pick up something on his implants. He had never asked The Commander about what it was like having a mass murderer in her mind. In part because Lana had sent him everything the Sith Empire seemed to know about Force Ghosts, and quite frankly it had all seemed too fantastical. (That and he still hadn’t forgiven Lana for the incident with Master Suro) Some of his unwillingness to get too deeply involved was his distaste for Force Mysticism, and he probably should have more than skimmed the readings, but Lana worried about it enough for ten people.

But even the little bit of what he’d skimmed had been worrisome; and more than that his own experience with Revan had been…

The shadow vanished a moment later, quickly enough for Theron almost to discount the whole thing as a breeze, or just his own mind projecting, but whatever had happened seemed to have profoundly shaken The Commander. It wasn’t obvious, and he moved to put a hand on her shoulder to say literally anything to snap her out of whatever poisonous mind state Valkorion had drawn her into, only to have a sniper shot come within millimeters of his hand. Theron recoiled immediately, and reflexively drew his blasters pointing them at Aric in single swift motion. The gesture was pointless though, not even he could make a shot with a blaster from that far away.

“I said don’t—“

“It really is you,” even at a whisper, whatever mic equipment was hidden in the bag seemed to have picked up the Commander’s voice. “Aric. I thought you were—“

“—I never believed for a second you were dead.”

Theron shifted uncomfortably and reholstered his weapons, trying to figure out how to exfiltrate himself just far enough to not have to be a third wheel to this reunion without wandering off too far just in case something happened. Luckily, the rest of Havoc squad seemed to have gotten some sort of all clear signal and they emerged from the shadows, not quite as ghost like as the Commander – but almost. “We should probably give them a moment.” Theron’s voice was low as he glanced back and forth between Havoc and The Commander; and Havoc Squad seemed to have had much the same thought and they nodded in unison at the suggestion.

The ability of the elite military squads to move in absolute lock step never ceased to impress Theron, and he slipped quietly behind them as they melded back into the shadows. He kept pace easily enough and they reached a larger camp without anybody speaking a word. Lack of proper introductions was something else he had gotten used to with the military. It was either formal salutes and full titles at inspection, or nobody seems to have a name.

“Theron Shan, former SIS.”

“We know who you are.”

“You have me at a disadvantage then. Republic military intelligence doesn’t exactly send me weekly briefings anymore.”

That got a laugh from the whole squad and they loosened up slightly. Not that they gave their names, but the intensity level dialed back to tolerable levels. “So, now that we’re friends and have had a good laugh together, what’s the truth. Why’d Havoc go rogue?”

The entire squad laughed again, before the woman he’d pegged as Aric’s second answered. “Two words. Aric Jorgan.” Theron glanced at her, and nodded for her to continue as he noticed for the first time that there was a more then passing resemblance to The Commander. “He never stopped looking for his wife, nearly got a psych discharge over his obsessive behavior. Came back from it all by making it his personal crusade to wipe out every last Knight of Zukuul as a way to get back at Arcann. He’s killed more knights on solo missions then the entire Republic Fleet ever did.”

“You mean back when The Republic still had a fleet.”

“We might have still had a fleet if top brass hadn’t stuck him at some backwater outpost to rot instead of on the front lines where he might have done some good.”

“Elara—“

“Captain Dorne now. And yes. She probably believed she was doing him a favor by assigning him somewhere safe.”

“Do you know where Dorne is now?”

There was a long pause where the answer was clearly yes, they did know what had happened to Elara but don’t want to admit it. “She works for The Supreme Commander as counter intelligence. You have her brutal tactics to personally thank for so many Imperial defectors joining your ranks. After Havoc broke up, well—“

The telltale sound of robotic footsteps and slurping of the swamp stopped their conversation short. Even as careful as he had been, it looked like their landing hadn’t gone unnoticed…


	3. "You’ve never dreamed of him the way he’s going to tell you he dreamed of you."

“I never stopped searching for you.”

Theron had read the situation well enough to follow Havoc back to camp, and not for the first time Lo’nash couldn’t help but notice how attuned he managed to be in situations like this; and how much work it must have been for him to keep her self-destructive behaviors in check. She added ‘give Theron a raise’ to a mental to-do list that was a mile and a half long already. Parallel processing made her less effective, but, focusing solely on Aric only stood to invite Valkorian to comment on her every action, drawing attention to Aric’s every flaw, her every flaw, in a stream of commentary that there was no off button for.

This was better. If she thought about enough things at once and it was almost possible to forget he was there in the back of her mind. “I should have personally charged the Senate Tower and demanded to know where you were the second I wasn’t—“

It was a stupid plan. She knew it was stupid sounding even while she was saying it. But there was a lot of truth to it. There was so many ways that she could have handled this better than their reunion having ended up being in the middle of a swamp on Zakuul of all places. She could hear Aric scrambling for gear though the mic then giving up half way through and then jumping down a solid five meters from his vantage spot to the ground without missing a single beat. Cathar always landed on their feet, or something.

He slid to a stop in front of her, and fell into a crisp perfect military salute. Well, almost perfect. His armor was on crooked, and while he had managed to holster his sniper rifle properly, his blaster pistol wasn’t clipped in right, and he wasn’t wearing a right glove at all. The commanding officer in her noticed all this immediately, and she was sure he could feel her gaze taking in every imperfection. It’s—

“Ah, the man you used to love,” the look of disdain Valkorion gave Aric was enough to prompt an utter snarl from her. But it was just him baiting her again with the same type of provocation she knew he loved to use and that she fell for over and over again. He simply unstopped time a split second into her reaction and left her snarling at Aric over what must have seemed like nothing.

It was always a challenge to fit new words onto reactions meant for Valkorian, and it ended up as a snarl stammer, “Your blaster pistol isn’t properly secured. You’ve gotten sloppy.”

“It’s been six years and /that/--“

“Fix it.” This time the snarl was actual meant for Aric and he fell out of salute in shock and how angry she was about something so small.

“Sorry sir. I’ll fix it right away.”

Aric moved to adjust the holster, and Valkorion appeared again, stopping time and circling wordlessly. It was almost worse when he didn’t say anything. “He still loves you, and you’ve gone and wounded him for it with that little outburst of yours.” He laughed and vanished again.

Did he? Had she?

Valkorian didn’t seem to be lying. As she looked at Aric Lo’nash could tell that her outburst had shaken him. His fingers slipped twice while trying to fasten the second set of holster ties and he didn’t look up at her the whole time. It took him longer than it should have to shape up into something that would have passed inspection, and he still didn’t quite meet her eyes when he returned to salute and shouted, “Ready for inspection Sir!” He was still missing his right glove. But other than he had managed to pull himself together.

She eyed his ungloved hand before she took a step closer and gently grabbed his arm at an angle, holding his hand at her eye level and forcing Aric to look up at her. It was an old Officer’s school trick to make the shy students look up, but it worked just as well on seasoned veterans. She could tell there were a thousand things running through Aric’s mind that he wanted to say. One of the things she had always used to love about Aric was those intense green eyes of his. He never could keep the emotional tells out of his eyes, and even all these years later he still couldn’t. He really did still love her. He couldn’t hide the look in his eyes and he knew it.

“Aric—“

Time stopped before she could finish the sentence, and she waited for Valkorion’s inevitable taunt. Valkorion's presence followed no pattern, other then that he ruined almost every positive moment. There were some that slipped through, for whatever reason, but at times like this he couldn’t seem to resist. She turned full circle, but he wasn’t there. That was new. He had never just stopped time before without also appearing. She turned around a second time, this time almost curiously. How far could she walk before time restarted?

There was something to the idea, that with time frozen like this she could simply walk back to the shuttle and fly back to Oddessan, back to—

“You see the problem now don’t you. You’ve changed.” This time at least she kept from being baited into a snarl. “No, I thought I might need to interfere here; to keep you focused on the goal of defeating Arcann but I was wrong. This creature, he won’t be a distraction to you. You almost pity him.”

“That’s not—“

“You can’t lie to me!” It was rare that Valkorian raised his voice, but for a brief instant he does, force lightning gathering around him, before he drops back into his normal silky purr. “I’m only telling you what you already know. You’ve never dreamed of him the way he’s going to tell you he dreamed of you. No, you’re much better than that. Much better than a common solider. You’ve set your sights on a much more worthy cause then this beast. You’ll see that soon enough.”

Valkorion vanished again a second later, although his last swipe at Aric soured her mood enough that all she ended up managing to say was, “You’ve started to go grey on me.” She dropped Aric's hand and took a few steps backwards. “I always told you, trying to keep Havoc together—“

“Takes five years off your life.”

“Guess maybe I took that a little bit too literally.”

Aric laughed, a sad bitter laugh that suited the moment more than he could have known. “I’ve spent six years looking for you, and never once stopped to think about what it might be like actually seeing you again after so long. I guess I just thought—“

“—things would go back to the way they used to be. That there would be some crazy misunderstanding where the galaxy had conspired to keep us apart but—“

“—somehow we’d manage to fight through it. To beat the odds and get something close to a happily ever after.”

“Soldiers don’t get—“

“But we were different! Both of us. The galaxy owed us for everything we did.”

“Aric,” and this time Valkorion didn’t interrupt, but, his absence was almost unsettling, “Is that why you took Havoc and went rogue? Some sort of vendetta? I wouldn’t have approved that. Havoc—“

“The Havoc Squad you knew is gone.” The finality of the statement surprised them both, but Aric continued. “The Republic you knew is gone too. Saresh runs things now. She’s got herself a puppet chancellor, but she’s the one running the show. People back home, they’re scared all the time that The Eternal Fleet is going to turn Courscant to ashes again, that we can’t stop it, and she’s full of military promises. I took Havoc and left because I didn’t want to be partial to her plans to keep attacking The Empire even when our own defenses are badly compromised.”

“She wants revenge and military victories for show no matter the cost. Here on Zakuul, Havoc can actually do some good. We came here because SIS told us that there was somebody who could help us with a mission to convert local refugees into a fighting force; we – I – still need your help with that.”

Aric changing the subject so abruptly seemed as if he were offering her a way out, even as Lo’nash shook her head in disbelief at the description. That couldn’t all have been true. But, Aric had never been one to lie to her. The truth was that too many more questions would only end up with Valkorion’s return, and so even as unconvinced as she was, Lo’nash didn’t hesitate too long before she replied, “The Alliance would be glad to lend its support to Havoc Squad.”

“Then let’s move out.”


	4. “Unless Havoc has anti-tank weapons lying around, I have a plan.”

The sound of blaster fire echoed through the swamp before anything else could be said, the ping of skytroopers’ lasers a sound that Lo’nash recognized even before they spotted the advancing army. Army being precisely the right word. There were least three battalions of them, and another transport ship inbound if previous encounters were anything to go by. Even skytroopers were dangerous in large enough numbers; and this was clearly more than simply a random patrol.

“There’s a swamp rancor’s nest two clicks to the west, if we can lure the beast out, it’ll prove a distraction,” Valkorian’s sense of self-preservation was such that he largely left Lo’nash alone to plan the strategy of a battle -- her death ostensibly meant his own death after all. “The transports are landing right on top of the nesting ground for those giant spiders, they won’t make it back out.” The sound as one of the spiders managed to rip into a transport was a strange reassurance. “I trust Theron’s piloting skill, but I had him clear out what would look to be a perfect landing zone as a trap, just in case.”

“Don’t worry, Havoc can handle themselves until we provide backup.”

Provoking the Swamp Rancor felt almost like old times, and with Aric and her switching attention between the two of them by alternating fire, they were able to quickly lure it towards the skytroopers. Once one of droids started firing, their programming switched and they all turned to focus on the beast; leaving them vulnerable to a broadside against them from the camp where Havoc was holed up that wiped out three dozen in a single barrage, while the rancor tore through the rest, and then, headed towards their ships. No doubt drawn by the smell of death.

It almost felt too easy, but, with a thud a heavy transport ship dropped three walkers into the clearing, idling overhead briefly as a battalion of knights jumped to the ground and charged towards the camp. Aric immediately scaled one of the nearby jungle trees, the missing glove explained by Aric’s use of his retractable claws on the one hand to ascend effortlessly. Three knights were down before they ever realized there was a sniper targeting them.

They scattered, but there was no real cover for them from Aric’s vantage point. The Walkers turned slowly in support of their ground troops, but the swamp mud stymied their ability to move very far. Not that it changed the effectiveness of their heavy armor or weapons. Lo’nash swung around behind the walkers, taking almost no time at all to pull apart her electronet into a long string of wire, before she pulled out her comm. “Theron,”

“Commander, where—I see you.”

“Unless Havoc has anti-tank weapons lying around, I have a plan.”

The knights in the walkers didn’t seem entirely sure what to do without clear targets, and simply fired at random towards the camp with the walkers’ heavy lasers; an attempt at suppressing fire no doubt. Not that it was ever a fair fight against Havoc Squad, but the knights seemed particularly clueless to who they were dealing with. That much at least was a plus, knowing that despite their fire power the attack hadn’t been led by some elite team come to take down The Outlander. They had only been facing a heavily armored anti-rebel squad.

“We’re ready Commander.”

The three walkers all went down at the same instant, when three super charged jury rigged lightning bolts hit at the same time. For a brief second the whole swamp was alight as the voltage dissipated through the standing water; and few cloaked skytrooopers fell to the ground with a sizzle. It was rudimentary cloaking at best, but not something Lo’nash had seen them use before.

A cheer went up from Havoc as it became apparent that there’s no more reinforcements in bound. But it was a shallow victory at best. After losing such a large force in the swamp, Lo’nash knows from brutal experience that Arcann will only send larger numbers the next time. There was no choice about rather or not to help the rebels any more, they wouldn’t have lasted a week without support after causing such an embarrassing loss.


	5. “There’s no need for that Commander, we can settle this peacefully.”

The camp Havoc Squad had set up was less a camp and more a guard outpost for a nearby village of refugees. It was a nice set up, Lo’nash had to admit, far enough away that the battle hadn’t given away the location of the village but close enough for Havoc to rapidly respond to any threats. A few off the refugees who had been rousted from their sleep by the sound of fighting had started to gather in a nervous knot in the center of the camp.

There were more of them then Lo’nash would have expected. It felt like years ago she’d been here, rescuing an entirely different group of refugees and allowing them safe passage off Zakuul on the Gravestone. It was hard not to feel a brief stab of guilt at how many of that earlier group were probably on Asylum when Arcann and the Eternal Fleet had attacked.

Pashna, the leader of the refugee group stepped forward, and jabbed a finger in Lo’nash’s direction although his eyes never left Aric. “That woman is why we’re all here! We want nothing to do with any help from the Outlander!”

There was a murmur from the group behind him, they didn’t all seem to agree, but most of them seemed to. The ones who disagreed simply chose to stay silent and avoid eye contact. “If /she/ hadn’t killed our Emperor we wouldn’t be out here! She cost us everything!”

Aric looked shocked at Pashna’s outburst and and Lo’nash recognized the warning signs of what happened just before Aric’s temper got the better of him. “If you don’t want help from The Alliance then you don’t want help from Havoc Squad. That woman is—“

Valkorion again, but time didn’t seem to have completely stopped with this particular appearance, just slowed dramatically as Valkorion brushed past the rebel leader; who seemed to sense something was wrong as his eyes widened in a sort of slow motion shock. “These people wanted for nothing under my rule. Now look at them.” Valkorion seemed almost sad, or at least something close to sad. It was hard to picture somebody who consumed the life on multiple planets feeling sad about the misfortune of a few people he had never even met.

“You think I’m incapable of feeling?” For a second Lo’nash considered the question as the strangely slowed time unfolded around her. She didn’t know what to believe about that actually. Theron’s hand on her shoulder – and it was almost always Theron who disrupted her spaced out conversations with Valkorion – returned time to its regular flow. Valkorion was still there, probably still waiting for her answer, just not manifest, his spirit a cold presence that she could feel under her skin watching and waiting to strike.

Brushing off Theron’s hand with a sharp glare she took a step towards the rebel leader, hand moving towards the smaller pistol on her hip. “Listen you—“

“There’s no need for that Commander, we can settle this peacefully.” Aric looked alarmed at her sudden anger, and stepped between her and the rebels, holding his hands up and out to show he was unarmed and not reaching for a weapon. The number of times she’d seen Aric intervene like that over the years was low single digits; and for a brief moment there was a deep bitterness towards him about the whole thing.

“Don’t you dare take their side!” Her voice was low, dangerously low and before anybody really meant to have escalated things Havoc Squad all had their hands on their weapons ready to defend Jorgan. Theron, ever resourceful, moved just fast enough to draw his blaster on Kanner. (It wasn’t exactly regret he felt about having to threaten a member of a Havoc Squad to protect The Commander so much it the whole situation raised concerns that the Major wasn’t entirely in control.)

“I’m not taking their side! You’re not listening to—“

Lo’nash moved inhumanly fast, and for a brief second Theron could tell that her speed was Valkorian’s doing. So was the power behind the hit, a single uppercut strike to Jorgan’s chest. Theron had seen her throw Weeqays across a room before, but there was a distinctively Sith-y crackle sound to the blow and it knocked Aric back a good forty feet through the air into the side of one of the emergency shelters where he laid stunned. What followed was a total silence over the camp where nobody was quite sure what to do next.

“It feels good doesn’t it,” Lo’nash turned toward Valkorion’s voice, spinning in a slow circle as everybody edged nervously away from her. Nobody else could see him, and even Theron couldn’t have known what to make of what had just happened. “That was only the smallest taste of my power. With a thought you could do so much more than that. I only require the briefest moment of control and you could be done with these pitiful outcasts.”

For the first time she was tempted by the offer. Funny how not even power over death itself had been tempting a few months ago, but the stress of having to deal with logistics had sent her over the edge. Valkorion simply waited, letting her hold that tiny bit of his power while she decided. The feel of the crackle of force energy under her skin was intoxicating and without realizing it she had started radiating a dark energy powerful enough to show up as more than blip to Theron’s implants.

What snapped her back to reality wasn’t Theron shouting at her in a panic that she needed to stop whatever it was she was doing. It was Aric. He sat up, and even from forty feet away she could /feel/ the emotion in his gaze. He was afraid of her now.

In all their years together, on every mission they had ever been on since Ord Manell, he had never looked at her like that before. She had never behaved like this either. She might have snarled at him, they might have argued and shouted at each other; and their confrontation over General Garza on Rishi had left them not speaking for weeks. But they had always been careful to avoid tempers really flaring like this.

“Pathetic creature, not worth your time—“

But Lo’nash ignored his taunt and dropped her hands to her sides slowly, the dark energy dissipating slowly into the ground. She made eye contact with Pashna, “You’re right, this is all my fault.” She couldn’t bring herself to apologize for Valkorion’s death, but there was an actual tone of reconciliation in her voice at that point. “I know you don’t want my help, but, The Alliance owes the people of Zakuul our support. It was never our intention that you lose your homes, but, whatever our intentions, The Alliance is at least partially responsible for your situation. I promise we’ll do all we can to help your people.”

The five members of Havoc left standing fell into formation behind her, and Lo’nash stiffened uncomfortably at their sudden loyalty, completely missing the hand signal from Jorgan that had prompted it. “We’re not The Alliance, but we’re here now and can provide logistical support until proper Alliance backing comes through.” Kanner extended a hand towards Pashna and tensions dropped considerably. It was a holovid worthy moment; with Kanner in her Havoc Squad armor extending help to some downtrodden group with a loyal team in the background. Like all those propaganda vids they had made after Zoist to bolster recruitment. Was Havoc’s sudden loyalty simply training to fall in line and pose for the camera and make this look like a Republic Op? Maybe Aric had been right and more had changed then she had thought.


	6. “Can’t really threaten to court martial somebody already guilty of treason.”

As always there were logistical technicalities to work through. Leaving Havoc to train the rebels wasn’t simply a matter of trusting that with a few crates of blasters a fighting force would somehow shape together in a few weeks. Making things worse, another skytrooper patrol, this time in the dead of night, had very nearly stumbled right into their camp less then twelve hours after the first raid. The buzz of troop transports overhead had become a near constant; and Aric and Theron had taken to plotting something in low voices that didn’t seem to include anybody else. Lo’nash didn’t try to get involved, in part because she couldn’t bear how Aric managed to studiously avoid her, but mostly because forcing a conversation about what had happened ran the risk of reescalating tensions.

In the meantime, the rest of Havoc didn’t seem to have any issue with her giving orders around camp. They were good soldiers, and Lo’nash couldn’t help but be impressed by their dedication. There was none of the comradery and team chemistry that had been so central to the old Havoc between them though.  
  
Two days passed without much more than a minor incident before the Kalesh, Torg, accidently triggered one of the tripwire camp defenses. The defenses weren’t lethal; but the stun darts they fired were powerful enough to daze the giant spiders and had left more than one rebel out for a solid 36 hours. Torg was close enough to her that Lo’nash simply reacted to the sound of the wire snapping, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him backwards down to the ground in a swift motion as the stun darts zipped overhead and arced harmlessly into the dirt a few feet away. Before Lo’nash could snap at Torg to watch his step, four guns were pointed on her by the rest of Havoc. So much for trust and loyalty.

Nobody moved for a solid two minutes, and what ended up breaking the strange half standoff was a barked order from Jorgan. “Havoc, form up!” Torg scrambled up off the ground, managing to not look at her while he did so, and joined the rest of the squad at parade rest. Her back was to the five of them and Lo’nash didn’t bother to turn around, even though she could hear Jorgan chewing them out.

_Take slow calm deep breaths. Stay focused on a fixed point in the distance and notice every detail about it possible. Fill your mind with neutral observations about the environment_. The words came to mind easier now than they used to when she had first started working with Lana on ways to keep Valkorion at bay. It didn’t always work, but it was an excellent way to keep her temper in check around Senya and Koth – or anybody else who seemed intent on provoking conflict.

It hadn't been more then a few minutes before Aric walked over and stood next to her, whole body still tense from having been shouting. He didn't stand within reach, she noticed, but he was still close enough that she could once again see the grey fur around his eyes. He stared off into the distance and neither say anything for a long while some of the tension in his shoulders gradually loosened. “I told Havoc the next person who pulls a weapon on you gets sent for a court martial.”

Lo’nash laughed. “Can’t really threaten to court martial somebody already guilty of treason.”

“No but I can put them on the slowest shuttle possible back to Republic space and inform the SiS to pick them up on the other end. Might not be pulling a gun they end up on trial for, but they’d still face a court martial.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“For anything else, I wouldn’t. But—“

Lo’nash didn’t say anything as Aric trailed off into pained silence. This would have normally been when she would have apologized for overreacting, but she let the moment pass. There was nothing to say that didn’t sound insane. ‘Sorry the sith emperor made me do it?’ or maybe ‘sorry this voice in my head provoked me and just happened to let me throw you like a rag doll’.

“--But nobody is allowed to threaten my wife.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he managed to look simultaneously furious and vulnerable. His shoulders shook and there was a wild rage in his eyes that she hadn’t seen since Hoth when he almost murdered the SiS agent.

There was enough distance between them that Lo’nash didn’t immediately pull him towards her in a hug. Another difference from how things used to be. The pause in the conversation was clearly him waiting for her to say something, anything. The whole while his green eyes stared right straight at her, looking for any sort of affirmation. “Maybe its best if we—“

Don’t do this now, is really what she wanted to say. That after they stoppd Arcann, saved the galaxy (again) and things settled down to something approaching manageable stress they could talk about how problematic her behavior had become. There were a whole life time of conversations to be had about that topic, but right now, they didn’t have a lifetime. Going an hour without a crisis was minor miracle at this point. There just wasn’t time, or space in her mind, for the type of conversation needed here. But Aric started to shake his head and the last thing she wanted was another argument that might escalate. Instead, Lo’nash changed her mind mid-sentence, “—talk about something else first and see how that goes.”


	7. “Havoc came here for one last grand strike against Arcann, even if that meant none of us came back."

“After you ordered us to leave during that first confrontation with the Eternal Fleet, full scale mutiny broke out. Elara had to override Four-ex’s programming and have him subdue the rest of us before she could take control of the bridge and make the jump to hyperspace. Even Vik objected to obeying an order that left you in clear and present danger.”

“Yuun disappeared the next day, Vik lasted all of a week before getting caught with contraband and threatened with a court martial before he jumped a ship to wild space. Four-ex was reassigned to senate security after Saresh got word of just how advanced a prototype he actually was. Things got even worse they started declassifying General Garza’s mission logs ahead of her trial. Saresh wanted Elara’s head on a pike as an example, but Supreme Commander Malcom intervened and transferred her to black-ops intelligence. She’s /captain/ Dorne now.”

“The Sith Fleet had managed to recover most of the lifepods after the fighting ended, and as a gesture of ‘goodwill’ had turned most of the Republic officers back over to us. They executed a few people, but The Dark Council was still holding out that Marr wasn’t dead at that point. I don’t think they were quite sure what Marr had been doing with so many Republic officers on his ship.”

“It was utter chaos for two weeks after that first attack; nobody knew what was going on and where this massive fleet had come from. At least until Arcann and Thexan arrived. The Empire initially claimed it was one of their people who was the outlander responsible for the murder of their emperor. They paid for it heavily, the Eternal Fleet hit them harder than us at first. But within six months, they had dropped the claim and started blaming the Jedi.”  
  
“At first Havoc and I were on the front lines, but, it wasn’t long before we ended up bogged down in trenches fighting those damn skytroopers. Once the Eternal Fleet had crippled our navy they resorted to random droid attacks on civilian populations to keep everybody terrified of them. Every unit the Republic military had was in the trenches around population centers, day and night, guarding against a sneak attack. We fought droids for months.”  
  
“Even through all of that I knew you weren’t dead. I kept looking for you any time I had leave. Eventually I heard rumors about Arcann’s prison vault, guarded by knights 24/7 – I tried to convince anybody that would listen that a raid on it would work! But between Saresh’s obsession with The Empire being the real enemy, and how much man power we needed simply to keep the major population centers from being overrun by skytroopers, nobody would listen. I tried—“ Aric had to stop for a second, raw anger in his voice causing it to break. “I tried breaking into that vault. Lost my whole team doing so. Woke up two weeks later in a kolto tank facing a court martial and a psych discharge over my behavior. Fought it. Probably only won because Theron intervened on my behalf. I doubt he even remembers. We were all trying to forget by that point.”

“I tried to resign as Havoc Squad Commander after that. Even having won my case, leading Havoc just wasn’t the same without you by my side.  But, somebody in the top brass pulled us off guard duty and started assigned us real missions again.”

“After Thexan was killed and Arcann retreated back to Zakuul the Knights started showing up more places. Satele had vanished into wild space by this point, and the Jedi Order was in chaos. We had no defenses against Force using ground troops. That was when the Senate overrode Saresh and signed the peace treaty; we wouldn’t have lasted another month otherwise.”

“There was still fighting of course. Few in the Core Worlds took it well about paying tribute to Zakuul, and even fewer in the outer rim took it well that the knights became a defacto police force. Supreme Commander Malcom cut us lose after the peace treaty, told us to kill as many knights as we could, and he’d deny any knowledge if we ever got caught.”

“For a while it felt good to have the freedom to intervene where we were actually needed, no more manning trenches around noble houses while people in the outer rim suffered. Havoc was out in front again. For years we were successful, hitting staging grounds, sabotaging transport ships, if could hurt Zakuul’s war effort we did it.”

“We ended up planning our defection after Arcann launched the Star Fortresses. We’d strike a military target, he’d hit a civilian population center. The attacks on civilians should have stopped Saresh, but, everything was an Imperial Plot to her.”

“Havoc came here planning one last grand strike against Arcann, even if that meant none of us came back; and that plan is what Theron and I have been discussing the past two days. It was always going to be a suicide strike for Havoc Squad alone – but he thinks there might be a way to pull it off and have everybody make it back out again.”  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you until Theron could work out if it was even a possibility of getting back out alive after the alarms go off; if I’d told you, and there had been no other way beyond a suicide mission—“

“I would have told you both to be ready to take advantage of whatever hell this plan of yours stood to raise and led the team myself.” Lo’nash knew Aric was right, of course. Charging headlong into battle was who she was at her core.  

Jorgan had drifted closer as they’d been talking, and he gently reached for her hand. For a second she tensed, but didn’t pull away as he intertwined his fingers with hers. “Even if Theron’s wrong and this is a suicide mission, there’s nobody in the galaxy I’d rather have by my side than you.”


End file.
